Unconscious Brain Makes Excellent Decisions

Human Mind is Hard Wired to Make Good Choices

Dec 28, 2008 Christine Nyholm

A new study by the University of Rochester has found that the human brain can make optimal decisions when the unconscious mind is allowed to process information.

Unconscious decision making can be surprisingly reliable, according to a newly released study by the University of Rochester in New York. Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has shown that when the unconscious brain makes choices, people can make excellent decisions.

The old folk wisdom of trusting instincts may be backed up by scientific research. People really are able make good decisions when they do not over think or over analyze the issue. The unconscious mind picks up cues that help to make the best possible decision with the available information.

Research by University of Rochester

University of Rochester researchers have shown that the human brain is hard wired to make the best possible decisions with the information given.

This new research is contrary to 1979 research by Neuroscientists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Their previous research argued that humans rarely make rational decisions. The research, which won the researchers a Nobel Prize in 2002 has become conventional wisdom among cognition researches, according to the information in the University of Rochester article.

According to Pouget, much of the early work in this field as based upon conscious decision making. Most decisions are not based upon conscious reasoning. Brains make subconcioius decisions constantly.

Pouget has spent years demonstrating that certain aspects of human cognition are surprisingly accurate Research employed a simple unconscious-decisions test with a series of dots on a computer screen.

Study Shows that Unconscious Minds Make Good Decisions

A controlled number of these dots are purposely moving uniformly in the same direction, and the test subject simply has to say whether he believes those dots are moving to the left or right. The longer the subject watches the dots, the more evidence he accumulates and the more sure he becomes of the dots' motion.

Subjects in this test performed exactly as if their brains were subconsciously gathering information before reaching a confidence threshold, which was then reported to the conscious mind as a definite, sure answer. The subjects, however, were never aware of the complex computations going on, instead they simply "realized" suddenly that the dots were moving in one direction or another. The characteristics of the underlying computation fit with Pouget's extensive earlier work that suggested the human brain is wired naturally to perform calculations of this kind.

"We've been developing and strengthening this hypothesis for years—how the brain represents probability distributions," said Pougett in the press statement, "We knew the results of this kind of test fit perfectly with our ideas, but we had to devise a way to see the neurons in action. We wanted to see if, in fact, humans are really good decision makers after all, just not quite so good at doing it consciously"

Pouget went on to state that in Kahneman's study, people were told what the chaces were. In Pouget's study the peoples subconcious minds were allowed to work it out. Pouget said, "It's weird, but people rarely make optimal decisions when they are told the percentages up front."

According to the research at University of Rochester, the unconcious brain can bake excellent decisions with the information that it processes.

Cognitive Science

Cognitive science is the study of mind and intelligence. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the science embraces philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics and anthropology. Over 60 universities have established cognitive science programs to study the complex workings of the mind.

The University of Rochester cognitive study has been published in Neurons.

University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, Out Unconscious Brain Makes the Best Decsions POssible. New Research Shows the Human Brain Computes Extremely Well - Given What it Knows. Study lead author Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences. Statement dated December 26, 2008.

The copyright of the article Unconscious Brain Makes Excellent Decisions in Scientific Inquiry is owned by Christine Nyholm. Permission to republish Unconscious Brain Makes Excellent Decisions in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

University of Rochester Medical School